Appeasement

It actually began way back before the country was formed. After the Quaid and his cohorts had determined that the parting solution was unlikely to carry equal representation in the ministries in the centre between Hindus and Muslims, socio-political triggers mutated to seeking an independent dominion.

Thus began the phase where a politically driven motive for a separate homeland began to be expressed as an economic imperative and the need for an equal opportunity for the large Muslim minority which would otherwise be overwhelmed by an even larger Hindu majority. Sounds familiar? Right from the history books – even better explained by independent historians of the calibre of Ayesha Jalal.

What vehicle did this new movement for an independent dominion ride on? The gradually germinating brand of separate electorate and the Two-Nation Theory which took root from the religious ethnicity of the Muslims, separate from the Hindus. The Subcontinent thus got divided on the lines of religion.

The Punjabi Muslim also got swayed into some more religious national slogans. Religion by default was thus sown in the foundations of this nation. Since ‘you’ used their vehicle to reach the destination, the Islamists weren’t just letting you forget that – even if they had in principle opposed the creation of Pakistan.

Soon after the Quaid passed away in 1948, the then prime minister of the dominion, Khan Liaquat Ali Khan, passed in the Constituent Assembly the Objectives Resolution which underpinned the flavour of the nation in strong religious terms. That killed any lingering debate over the issue of a secular nature of the state. It helps to keep in mind that both the ultra-right in the shape of........